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Holiday Open House At Mesa Verde National Park Set For December 5

Mesa Verde National Park will host its annual Holiday Open House on December 5 this year. NPS photo of cliff dwellings illuminated by luminaria.

The soft glow of luminarias will guide visitors through some of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park on December 5 when the park holds its Holiday Open House.

The event will run from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Chapin Mesa headquarters area.

Everyone is invited to join the park staff in this holiday celebration featuring special tours, luminarias, musical entertainment and refreshments.Ranger-guided tours of Spruce Tree House, the third largest cliff dwelling in the park, will be presented at 10:30 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m. Spruce Tree House will be open for self-guided tours from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Luminarias will glow along the pathways throughout the headquarters area, a National Historic Landmark District, and along the trail to Spruce Tree House. It's recommended that you dress warmly and bring a flashlight.

The Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum will remain open until 9 p.m.There will be musical entertainment in the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum Auditorium throughout the evening.

The non-profit Mesa Verde Museum Association (MVMA) Museum bookstore will be open highlighting the sale of books, posters, puppets, historic photographs, and great holiday gifts as well as in-store specials.Bring your gift list along to take advantage of this special occasion. Proceeds benefit Mesa Verde National Park.

Attendance at the Open House is free.Refreshments will be provided by ARAMARK at the Spruce Tree Terrace.

No park entrance fee will be charged after 4 p.m. on Thursday, December 5. Mark your calendar and plan to join us in the park festivities! For further information, please contact the park at 970-529-4465.

Comments

Maybe in today's "more urbanized, technology oriented culture" it will be the parks that gain in appreciation because places to escape that culture will be all the more rare. But again my real issues with special events are that they often but not always make the NPS do things that are not authorized in law and subtract scarce resources from the things that are the park's primary mission in order to achieve goals such as increased visitation and increased concession sales bringing a real tacky vibe to what should be special places --not another Disney World.

Perpetual Seasonal, While the inhabitants of Mesa Verde never celebrated Christmas or utilized luminarias, I have no problem with this event. Mesa Verde is, to me, a very spritual place. Seeing the pathways and ruins illuminated with luminarias, I think, would simply accentuate that spritual feel. The residents of Acoma Pueblo line the roadway to the pueblo and the pueblo itself with luminarias on Christmas eve. Very magical. As rmackie said "...it would have been impressive to walk the mesa and..." see campfires. This is about as close as we will get. If this event draws people to the park that would not normally have come, and they then develop a love and affinity for the park because of this event, I think that is great. In this day and age of a more urbanized, technology oriented culture, the NPS has to find ways to connect with and remain relivant with the public. This very well might be a way to do that.

Nice response Perpetual Seasonal. I can see both sides of the issue, but you do have a point about the Mesa Verde ceremony. The Native american people may have had campfires, I do not know, but it would have been impressive to walk the mesa and see that.

George Vanderbilt first official party for his friends and family at Biltmore was on Christmas Eve in 1895. That may have been one of the only Christmases the Vanderbilts spent at Biltmore, but I believe that one Christmas is likely the inspiration for what is done at Biltmore today.

Just to be clear I have no problem with special events per say. The Over Mountain Victory Encampment at the Blue Ridge Parkway is a wonderful event. It is just that so often I have seen them put on at the expense of the experience of the regular visitor from the general public and often doing things that are six degrees of separation from the parks enabling legislation.

I've even seen superintendents direct NPS staff to conduct outdoor showing of movies in towns far from the park -movies that have nothing to do with the site. They do this I suppose to keep good relations with the local governments but it also places a bigger load on the staff back working in the park resulting in poorer service.

I am reminded of the very popular decoration of the Biltmore Estate for Christmas. It is a privately run historic site (and a very well run one I might add) but the reality is that the Vanderbilts never would have decorated the place for Christmas. They were back at their home in New York by December --they only summered in North Carolina. The huge house would have been shuttered months before Chritmas. But hey, its popular and brings in money so historical accuracy goes out the window. That doesn't bother me so much with a private operation like Biltmore but we should expect a more academic approach from our government I think.

Or the concept of 'value added'. If an interp or management staff looks at what they already have - the sound of the falling snow, the shine of the moon through darkened treetops, finding the trail of tracks and spoor - and they decide, "Well, what can we add, what can we do to enhance, or to specially entice on this or that occasion?"

I don't know that that is a bad thing, especially if it is something that doesn't detract or subtract from the natural experience itself.

If folks will come out for the candle lit event, perhaps they'll catch the magic and come on back out on their own for the underlying natural experience.

Perpetual, I'm afraid you're right. I just looked again at the last sentence in my post above: " Is providing an experience like that all bad when it just might bring about some stirrings in the hearts of some entertainment jaded Americans?" and recognized a certain irony in it.

Have so many of us become entertainment junkies that we must be entertained in places where the real entertainment is something much deeper inside those who are still capable of feeling it? Like the sound of falling snow or just being surrounded by a field of wildflowers or that special little feeling that comes inside one's heart when in the presence of a place where history was made?

Then on the other hand, is it possible that experiences like the luminarias or the cannon might provide an avenue that might enable some folks to begin to feel those things for the first time?